INDOT MD-27 Commercial Improved Comparable: What Every Right-of-Way Appraiser Needs to Know

What the MD-27 is and when it's required

Within INDOT's Real Estate Manual valuation procedures, comparable sales for right-of-way appraisal assignments are documented on one of three standardized forms depending on property type: MD-25 for residential, MD-26 for land, and MD-27 for commercial improved property. The MD-27 applies specifically when the comparable being documented is a commercial parcel with an existing improvement -- a building or structure that contributes value beyond the land itself, as opposed to a vacant commercial lot, which would be documented on MD-26 instead.

Because right-of-way assignments compare a subject parcel against multiple comps to support a value opinion, an appraiser working a commercial corridor project may need several MD-27 sheets in a single assignment, each one built from a different sale's data. Getting the form right matters at submission -- INDOT reviewers are checking both the numbers and whether the form was completed correctly for the property type it describes.

The key sections of the MD-27, and what they require

The form is organized around a handful of core sections, each pulling from a different kind of source:

• Main Improvement -- the primary building on the comparable: type, size, year built, effective age, condition, and grade. This is largely a data lookup against the county's property record card (PRC), not appraiser opinion.
• Other Improvement -- secondary structures on the same parcel (a second building, a detached garage, an outbuilding) documented the same way as the main improvement, when present.
• Land Improvements -- site improvements that aren't buildings: paving, fencing, retaining walls, and similar items, each with its own condition and value contribution.
• Land -- the underlying site: acreage, zoning, and land value, typically sourced from the SDF record and assessor land data rather than the PRC.
• Value Abstraction -- how the sale price breaks down across land and improvement value, generally sourced from assessor records rather than the sale transaction itself.
• Comments -- narrative context: anything about the sale, the property, or the comparability adjustment that doesn't fit a structured field.

The distinction that matters most: Highest & Best Use and Condition of Sale are appraiser judgment fields. They cannot be reliably auto-populated from PRC, SDF, or GIS data -- no data source directly states what a property's highest and best use is, or characterizes the negotiating conditions behind a specific sale beyond the arm's-length flag itself. Tools that quietly guess at these fields from proxy data are a real liability; the honest approach is to populate what's genuinely a data lookup and leave judgment fields for the appraiser to complete, clearly flagged as such rather than silently filled in.

Common errors on MD-27 submissions

A few patterns show up repeatedly and are worth checking before submission. A blank field, a field marked "N/A," and a field marked "Unknown" are not interchangeable -- each communicates something different to a reviewer (data that wasn't looked up, versus data that doesn't apply to this property, versus data that was sought but couldn't be found), and treating them as equivalent shortcuts creates ambiguity a reviewer then has to chase down.

Value Abstraction is another common friction point: it needs to be sourced from actual assessor records for the comparable, not estimated or backed into from the sale price alone. And zoning should reflect the parcel's actual zoning designation at time of sale, not assumed from the property's current use -- the two aren't always the same, particularly for older commercial parcels or parcels near a municipal boundary.

Data sources for MD-27 field population

Each major field category on the MD-27 has a natural source: building characteristics (size, year built, condition, grade) come from the county's property record card; sale transaction data (price, date, parties, arm's-length status) comes from the SDF filing; parcel dimensions and boundary data come from GIS parcel layers; and Value Abstraction comes from the assessor's own land/improvement value split for the parcel. Matching each field to its actual source -- rather than treating the form as one undifferentiated data-entry task -- is what makes populating it efficient instead of a county-by-county research project.